CRUDE INTENT: An Alex Sheridan Thriller by Elizabeth Jeffett – Romantic Thriller, Thriller and Suspense, Mystery Thriller

Elizabeth Jeffett delivers a hot, steamy second book in the Alex Sheridan Thrillers, Crude Intent.

Alex Sheridan, the androgynously-named heroine of Crude Intent, just about has it all: a gorgeous body and face, millions of dollars, and a business acumen enabling her to match wits and wiles in the male-dominated oil wildcatting business. And let’s not forget the cadre of powerful and sexy men who love her.

It would be more “all” except for the close people around her who keep getting brutally murdered. The scheming competitors and/or psychopaths who work hard at ruining her life and nearly succeeding, and the dangerous circumstances that almost end her life several times even when the intentional murderers fail.

In this second book, Alex Sheridan has survived more than her fair share of trauma.

The grisly murder of her previous business partner, Christine Welbourne, weighs on Alex. The steamy affair with oil worker Colt Forrester that began in the first novel, Silent Partners, continues. But when a fire breaks out at one of her fracking wells outside Denver, polluting the air and threatening to burn down pristine forest lands surrounding the installation, all hell breaks loose as fracking opponents launch media-friendly protests. TV coverage is everywhere, and business opponents can smell an excellent opportunity to leverage the disaster as a means of acquiring Alex’s valuable oil leases and putting her out of business.

Then comes the terrible news.

Colt Forrester is missing and might be a murder victim. With the very public knowledge of their rocky affair, Alex becomes the prime suspect in Colt’s suspected death.

This is only the beginning of Alex’s troubles in this fast-paced, romantic thriller. The sheriff and the district attorney investigating the case come after her. A giant competitor uses many operatives inside and outside the law to bring Alex down. The press, sensing a newsworthy scandal, start to portray Alex as a villain in her oil well fire disaster. Critical suspicious characters emerge at different times in the chess-like game against her.

Elizabeth Jeffett takes time to develop Alex into a believable hero.

Losing Colt and the murder of her partner Christine take their own substantial toll on her emotions as she fights against the seen and unseen forces moving against her. It is up to a loyal cadre of friends and associates, as well as a new love interest, Angus “Bull” Hawthorn, a Red Adaire-like oil well firefighter, to help keep her together in the series of disastrous revelations that threaten to destroy her. Yet Alex is no shrinking violet. As calamity after calamity engulfs her, she still finds the guts to vigorously confront the forces arrayed against her and uses her formidable personal and professional powers in the good fight to save her empire.

A subtle but interesting sidelight of the book is its well-researched focus on the fracking industry, the powerful but controversial method of extracting oil from oil shale that has helped the U.S. become a leading exporter of crude in the 21st Century. While most contemporary books portray fracking as an environmental villain, this book takes a somewhat neutral approach to the practice.

Not every strand wraps up at the end of Crude Intent. A third book is in the offing, according to an endpaper in the novel. Unlike many books designed as a series, this novel can be read from start to finish as a complete experience. Readers wanting to know what happened to certain storylines left as cliffhangers in this volume will still find satisfaction in the many unexpected twists and turns in this swift-paced engaging novel.